Lifestyle and Art Magazine

Choosing a DJ Name – Part 1: Psytrance

Welcome to our friendly how-to guide, where we’ll help you refine your creative ideas to their fullest potential. Our first part of the series – Choosing a DJ Name – will enable your leading step into what will be a torrid bedroom journey of sleepless nights, fluorescent tan, diminishing social skills and countless Menulog orders.

Names are always important for music branding. A name lends insight into what your music will be about from one shot in the dark on Bandcamp to many potential punters and DJs looking for some fresh tuna. This week, we’ll look at the magical world of mouldy Ganesha banners for how to choose a psytrance name. Let’s go to the Doof.

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General Psytrance Name Rules

Your name might depend on what sub-genre you are tackling within psy, but as a general rule of thumb, you can’t go wrong with any sort of insertion of “psy” within your artist name, e.g. psykick, psymon, psydways, deep groaning psy of having to listen to this shite. You might also like to reference a conspiracy or aliens, e.g. Reptilian Sounds, Psytgeist or Haarp Media. Also remember that a scientific, energy-related concept or psy-related aesthetic always works a treat, e.g. Aeon Headsplitter, Pete Transfer, Douga Douga or Bubble Bobble.

Morning Melodic/Progressive Trance

You will want to put some love and light into your business, so add a radiant and positive adjective to any sort of object to show how much of a fucking light-bringer you are: e.g. Light Bringer, Positive Dragon, Self-Righteous Fairy and Visible Butt-crack.

Don’t forget to dig into any sort of knowledge you have on fey creatures, paganism or mythology, and and it’s good to remember most psy fans enjoy dated 80s flicks like Dark Crystal and Willow. You want to augment how much of a fantasy world you live in, and display new-age fallacies by the bucket-load, in order to make things accessible for all kinds of hippies ranging from Ditzy Yogi Mums to Fashionista Festival Jetsetters.

Try to think of what it feels like to have a 3-hour long migraine from listening to dark psy and the impending horror you feel as some sort of manifested demon when you realise you will have to listen to this shit all night, your mate is too wasted to drive home, you’re running out of beer and you are trapped out in the dark bush all night with no-one rational to converse with.

Suomi/Forest Funk

With this style, you need to show how wacky you are. You’re the kind of guy who puts his fluorescent tights on backwards, and you are totally and humorously jaded to goa-style conventions. Either that or you are Finnish, so honour the timeless folk traditions of ridiculously long and unpronounceable names in your indigenous tongue.